US Against the World originally aired on Wednesday, September 7th 1977.

NBC's own entry into the celebrity "reality" sports show genre, trying their best to compete with the CBS television network's Celebrity Challenge of the Sexes and the originator of this type program, ABC's Battle of the Network Stars. On NBC's version various national and international stars would test each other in numerous semi-challenging sporting events. And much like the other two programs every effort was made to make sure that none of our stars over taxed themselves in competitions that were either too demanding or dangerous. Hence the interesting and unique array of sports competitions that included: bowling, darts, rowing, swimming and running relays and soccer goal kicking. On this program the contestants were divided into three teams, the United States, the United Kingdom and "the rest of the world", and we were completely spellbound as our competitors managed to have both a great time and to defend country and honor!

In this episode some of the contestants would include, for the U.S. team: Kate Jackson, Gabe Kaplan, Kristy McNichol, Linda Blair, Rob Reiner, David Soul, Dan Haggerty and Flip Wilson. Fighting for Britain and the Queen were Marty Feldman, Twiggy, Roger Daltrey, Richard Dawson, Susan George and Andy Gibb. And competing for "the rest of the world" were Levar Burton, Rich Little, Britt Ekland, Michael Ontkean, Sergio Mendes, Susan Clark, Rod Taylor and Elke Sommer. Don Rickles was the host for this episode, with help from both Ed McMahon and Jack Klugman.

Buying note: To my knowledge this program has not been seen since it originally ran in 1977, no copies have been traded among collectors and the chances of it ever being released on home video are small at best. The best chance this show has of ever being seen again would probably be if a cable or satellite tv service reran them, much like Trio® did with the Battle of the Network Stars program a few years back.

8-8-2007